Disclaimer: I obviously do not own The Vampire Diaries, or there would have been so much Klaus/Caroline by now we'd all be smothered to death by it.

Prologue

For the first time in a long time, his legs felt unsteady beneath him. His hands were shaking. The breath he didn't even need came out in labored gasps and growls, conjuring white clouds as they hit the cold night air. His mind was buzzing, but at the same time blank. He was an animal in his most primal state, moving on automation, no real destination or plan or thought-process to be found. His hand clenched around the neck of the champagne bottle he'd picked up somewhere, curling into a fist so tight that he could hear the tiny pressure fractures spider-webbing their way up the glass. Then he heard it, in the distance. A familiar voice having a one-sided conversation with tonight's culprit. She was asking where he'd disappeared to – telling him he'd promised to be her sober driver. He altered his course without realizing, following the voice until its owner came into view.

"Good evening, Carol." The words came without his mind summoning them – he was just an observer in all of this, as he so often was when that animal in him pushed to the forefront. He staggered forward and the mayor looked up from where she was sitting, at the edge of the fountain, clearly alarmed. He nodded toward her mobile, "You're looking for Tyler. I'd like to have a word with him myself."

He could hear her heartbeat quickening, see her body begin to tremble. She knew. She'd known what her son had been planning, and now she knew that there were going to be consequences. Good. He wouldn't have to answer any questions – he'd grown so weary of answering questions. "Klaus, please," her voice was quiet, but he heard her as if she was speaking through a megaphone. He felt a familiar, sick sense of amusement in her pleading tone. "Don't hurt him. He's my son; he's all I have."

"And you're all he has," Klaus added with a small smirk. He pondered this, urges bubbling to the surface. Urges to do what he did best: Rob those who'd wronged him of those they loved the most. "There's a beautiful symmetry to that, don't you think?" He let her consider his words for a moment before he grabbed a handful of her auburn hair, using all of his strength to force her head into the ice cold pool behind her. Even muffled by the water, he could hear her screams, hear the way they silenced as her throat filled and the liquid started working its way into her lungs.

Then two arms wrapped around him from the back and jerked him away, throwing him a few feet and sending him sprawling through the grass. It wasn't the strength that had undone him – it was the surprise of the vampire's interruption. He'd been so involved in what he was doing that he'd let his guard down. He hadn't heard anyone coming. He regained his bearings quickly, jumping to his feet and running forward as the intruder fished Carol Lockwood out of the fountain and pounded the water from her lungs. He caught the vampire by the shoulders, registering the identity but sparing no mercy as he plunged his fist into her chest, fingers wrapping around her heart.

He heard her gasp. Saw her bright blue eyes go wide and quickly begin to lose their light. Felt her heart pound between his fingers like a jackhammer. "Everything I've done," he growled, loud and in her face, "Has been undone because of you. You are always the bait," he squeezed a little harder, "And I always know that I am being baited, yet I allow you to charm me. And because of you, I have lost everything I've worked for!"

"Klaus," she croaked, eyelids growing heavy as the life began to leave her, "Please."

"Please?" He clenched a tighter fist still, a humorless laugh escaping his throat. "I have honored every please that has come from your bloody mouth; I am tired of your requests, Caroline." She forced her eyes to stay open, watching him, those perfect sapphires in their almond-shaped setting staring him down as they'd done so many times before. And again, he felt himself go weak. God, how he hated feeling so weak around her, so enslaved. All at once, his energy was gone and he let his fingers go lax, pulling his hand from her chest and leaving a macabre hole in her snow white dress. "Go," he said quietly, collapsing onto the bench behind him and burying his face in his hands.

Caroline took several deep breaths in an attempt to steady herself before reaching down to help Carol to her feet, both of them tripping over themselves as they moved away from him. "Oh, and ladies," Klaus said through his fingers as they went. "You might want to issue a warning to that special man in your lives: Tell him to run. Because when I find him – and I will find him – I am going to tear him limb from limb. Very, very slowly." There was a beat of silence, then the rustle of branches and stiff grass as Caroline gathered her boyfriend's mother into her arms and sped away, leaving him alone.

Alone. The word struck true for not the first time in his life. For a brief, wonderful moment, he'd had comrades – creatures of his own design, loyal to him, grateful to him, as close to an ideal family as he could ever get. Now they were gone, and he'd pushed away his siblings in an attempt to create his hybrids, so he truly was on his own now. He was empty again. Empty as always.

He didn't know what to do with himself. There was a restless need banging around in his body, telling him he needed to do something – scream, fight, kill something – but an emotional exhaustion that left him almost paralyzed. After sitting perfectly still for almost an hour, he finally managed to get to his feet and make his way home, to the too-large house that now only he occupied, and crawl into his shower. If only his enemies could see him now, unharmed but wholly undone, worn out to the point that he could barely stay standing long enough to clean the copious amounts of blood from his body. By the time he collapsed into his king sized bed, with its crisp white sheets and the thick quilt he'd had for over a century, he felt as if he could sleep for centuries. Maybe it would be better for him if he did.

He woke not centuries later, but a mere seven hours. The light was streaming through the windows, blinding him and eliciting a low growl from the back of his throat. He pulled the quilt over his head and rolled over, willing himself to fall back asleep and stay that way. Stay asleep forever.

"No," he grumbled to himself, ripping the blanket away from his face and running a hand through his hair, "We're not doing that, Niklaus. We are above this sort of foolish self-pity." He wondered if, if he told himself that enough, it would eventually become true. He continued to give himself an internal pep-talk. Buck up. There are things to see, people to torture, new endeavors to be masterminded. He would move on from the loss of his hybrids, and the first step in that healing process would be ripping Tyler Lockwood to shreds and spreading the pieces of him all over this god forsaken town. The thought alone cheered him up enough to get his day started, rolling out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark green sweater. He wasn't stupid; he knew that Tyler Lockwood had probably skipped town even before he told Caroline to issue his warning. He also knew that Tyler was good at hiding from him and finding him would take a lot of time and energy that he didn't want to spend, but fortunately he had a quicker source. He knew a witch with a knack for tracking spells.

He found her in the square, walking with Elena and speaking in hushed tones. They were talking about him, of course. About how he'd tried to kill Tyler's mother. About how he was coming after Tyler and probably anyone else who'd been involved in last night's plan. "Too right you are," he said by way of an introduction, clasping his hands behind his back and giving the startled girls a little smile. "However, I could be persuaded to forgive and forget certain parties in return for a favor."

"What makes you think we'd do you any favors?" Elena spat at him, composing herself quickly. The worst part, in Klaus's opinion, about her transformation was not necessarily the loss of his precious doppelganger blood, but her amplified audacity. It was hard enough to keep his patience with her when she was human.

"What makes you think you have anything to offer me?" He snapped back, looking her up and down, "At least when you were human, you were useful. Now you have nothing to offer me. You, on the other hand," he turned his gaze to Bonnie and gave her his most charming smile, "Have a lot to offer."

Bonnie shook her head, "I still don't have my Powers back, and even if I did-"

"A simple tracking spell, Bonnie," he cajoled. "Takes as much Power as you have in your pinky nail."

"And even if I did," she continued, more firmly, "I wouldn't help you. Not after what you did to Carol Lockwood. And Caroline," she said her name almost like a question, like she couldn't even believe she was saying the words, "You almost ripped her heart from her chest."

Klaus rolled his eyes, his patience thinning. "Carol's alive, Caroline's alive, and the way I see it," he took a step closer, voice getting dangerously low, "The only thing that's going to keep you alive is doing this simple tracking spell for me."

Bonnie considered this, swallowed the lump in her throat, and asked, "Who do you need to find?"

"Tyler Lockwood."

"Okay, you are out of your mind," Elena interjected almost before he'd finished saying the name. She stepped in front of the witch and put up her hand like a stop sign. "We aren't going to help you find our friend so that you can kill him."

He fixed her with a cold gaze, the gold of his wolf eyes flashing through his irises. "You're aware of the alternative, aren't you?"

"You're not going to attack us out in the open." Elena waved her hand around, gesturing to the Mystic Falls residents walking around, blissfully unaware of the supernatural turmoil brewing in the square. "Even you're not that stupid."

"I'm flattered that you give me so much credit, Elena," his voice was nothing more than a growl now, "But I have had a very bad week-end and I'm not above a little act of stupidity." His mouth widened to reveal the sharp crescents of his wolf teeth and he lunged forward, barely giving the girls time to scream. Then, suddenly, he was thrown backward so hard that he hit a tree and his head snapped back, splintering the trunk with the force of the impact. Somehow, no one else around seemed to notice.

Klaus was seething now. "Witch!" He roared, "You lying little-" He groaned as he was forced back deeper into the tree, his body beginning to leave an impression in it.

Bonnie's eyes were wide, searching the area frantically. "It's not me," she told Elena when she gave her a questioning look, "Even when I had Power, I couldn't hold an Original like that."

"Don't feel too bad, cher," a voice said. It was a female voice, soft and sweet, with a lilting New Orleans accent that sounded like a song when she spoke. "It takes a lot of practice to hold something so old and stubborn in a place he don't wanna be." The voice was new to the girls, but something in it was familiar to Klaus. All three of them looked around for the source, but they couldn't find her.

Elena glanced around at the passersby, then at Klaus, still pinned to the tree. "Why does no one seem to notice this?"

Behind them, a group of young girls sat around a picnic table. Among them was one that didn't quite fit in – she was too old, too exotic, too new. She stood and turned toward them, face partially hidden by a wide-brimmed summer hat, but a smile visible on her face. "Just a tiny little glimmer, redirecting peoples' focus away from us. Best to keep these things between us girls, right?" She took a few steps forward and the girls studied her, trying to decide whether this was a friend or an enemy. She was tall, probably around 5'9", with deep olive skin and long black hair that hung in a thick braid over her left shoulder. Her arms and legs were well toned and on display from her knee-length skirt and sleeveless shirt, all white and perfectly pressed. She looked like an Italian supermodel.

Klaus opened his mouth to spit a threat at this new stranger when he caught a whiff of her, and the scent of cinnamon and pears invaded his senses, awakening old memories. That skin. That smile. The southern accent was new, but the tone beneath it was the same. But it couldn't be... "Why, Niklaus," even with the new accent, his name still sounded beautiful on her lips, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"You're supposed to be dead," he breathed, barely able to get the words out.

"And yet," she gestured to herself, smirking. "Ladies," she said with a nod to Elena and Bonnie as she cut between them, moving closer to the tree.

Klaus stared at her as she approached, slack-jawed. He really was having a hell of a week-end. "Let me go," he said. It wasn't an order, as it normally would have been. It was almost a pleading. The woman raised her chin so her deep green eyes became visible, and the hybrid fell from the tree and caught himself before he crumpled to the ground. He took a small step forward, studying the woman carefully.

After a minute, Elena gathered enough courage to ask, "Who is she?"

Without thinking, Klaus replied – a reply that he would regret later, because it made him vulnerable. "She's my best friend. Kamila," he said quietly, reaching for her but then dropping his hand when she stepped toward him without hesitation. He looked over his shoulder at Elena and Bonnie, the way they were studying the two of them, sizing them up. He knew they were already calculating, figuring out how to use this against him, and he had to get out of there. Fast. He grabbed for Kamila, gathering her in his arms before disappearing, leaving the two girls to wonder what the hell had just happened.

A/N:
All right, I know that my characters are a little bit OOC in this prologue, but they'll balance out in the coming chapters. I swear, I really am a decent writer; I just had a hard time getting off on the right foot here!